gvim can't find a valid font

[Nikola Lecic]

On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:20:24 -0700
Neil Gruending <neil at gruending.net> wrote:

> Nikola Lecic wrote:
> > On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:12:39 -0700
> > Neil Gruending <neil at gruending.net> wrote:
> > 
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I'm having a problem trying to get gvim 7.0.224 working. Every
> >> time I try to start it I get the following error:
> >>
> >> E665: Cannot start GUI, no valid font found|16H|8H|4H|31H
> >>
> >> and I get the console vim instead. I think I've messed up my xorg
> >> fonts somehow after upgrading to 7.2. I followed all of the steps
> >> in /usr/ports/UPGRADING, but I didn't have the xorg metaport
> >> installed so I installed it after upgrading. The first time I
> >> started it there was an error message that said I needed to run a
> >> program in the fonts directory (I forget which one), but I'm
> >> pretty sure I didn't fix the module path before running the
> >> command. I'm using the terminal in Xfce 4.4.1 to try and start
> >> gvim.
> >>
> >> Here's part of my xorg.conf (now) in /etc/X11 that seems to be
> >> related to fonts:
> >> [...]
> > 
> > Hello Neil,
> > 
> > This is strange because gVim uses built-in X fonts (i.e. 7x13) if
> > can't find anything else; and your X is running normally, which
> > couldn't be without any font available. So:
> > 
> > (1) 'xlsfonts' gives what?
> > 
> > (2) Could you please send here a relevant part of ~/.gvimrc? (Also
> >     try to start gVim without it.)
> > 
> > (3) How did you compile gVim, with WITH_GTK2, or?
> > 
> > It's certainly not related to your gVim problem, but as of your
> > xorg.conf, do you have any special reason for commenting out RgbPath
> > and Type1 FontPath?
> > 
> > Nikola Lečić
> 
> Hi Nikola,
> 
> xlsfonts gives:
> [...]

Looks good, gVim's last choice (7x13) is there.

> and here's my vimrc (running without a vimrc doesn't change the
> error):
> [...]

Not ~/.vimrc, but ~/.gvimrc. However, I'd say this is window$ version,
('behave mswin' etc.). You should carefully rewrite this file.

> I compiled gvim from ports with the default options I think. I'm not 
> sure how to get the options used for compiling after installing a
> port.

You might want to recompile the port with gtk2 support, for example:

  # portupgrade -f -m 'WITH_GTK2=yes' vim

(BTW, your vim is 7.0.224, whilst the last version is 7.0.241 -- not a
bad idea to upgrade your ports first and then to upgrade vim.)

There is gvimrc example, /usr/local/share/vim/vim70/gvimrc_example.vim.
You can copy that file to ~/.gvimrc and edit it. Additionally, I
attached the stripped version of my gVim config (gvimrc-nikola). You
will see there several if clausules for default font setting since the
syntax depends on how you compiled vim. In your case (with default
options), gVim should read "x11" section.

> As for the RGBpath and Type1 font path, that's how xorg made the
> file. Since I don't know much about configuring X, I figured it was
> smarter than me and it knew what it was doing.

Ok. So,

(1) try to use gvimrc I sent (of course, check if you actually have
    fonts that are listed there), or try the official example;

(2) try to upgrade vim, consider enabling gtk2 support (gVim will
    behave as a full gtk2 app then)

(3) try to remove all old config files you have, including system-wide
    ones. ':version' should show you where they are.

Nikola Lečić
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: gvimrc-nikola
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 3327 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20070627/315fba7a/gvimrc-nikola.obj